Orange County Register to have staffers pictures accompany each story

[Mr. X]

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2010/08/register_reporters_to_bec.php

Some papers have columnists pictures (or drawings) accompany their columns. Anyone else know of those who have reporters' pictures accompany their stories?

 

[Desk_dude]

One more thing to clutter up a page, ask the desk to do and possibly get wrong.

 

[Football_Bat]

I thought it was standard to run the columnist's mug.

The last artist's drawing serving that purpose that I have seen was on a microfilm reel circa 1959.

 

[HanSenSE]

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2010/08/register_reporters_to_bec.php

Some papers have columnists pictures (or drawings) accompany their columns. Anyone else know of those who have reporters' pictures accompany their stories?

No. Disaster waiting to happen. What to do with multiple bylines, team coverage, and when the clerk digs up something out of the morgue?

 

[steveu]

It's now standard practice on Mlive.com with the Booth papers. I do wonder what happens, though, when the wrong mugshot is drawn up.

 

[slappy4428]

It's now standard practice on Mlive.com with the Booth papers. I do wonder what happens, though, when the wrong mugshot is drawn up.

But that's online, where all they have to do is file the story according to the writer and the info pops up.
Bigger margin for error in print.

 

[TigerVols]

So now readers are going to pay for 2-to-4 stamp-sized photos of people they couldn't care less about on every page???

"Marketing research" be damned -- this is the dumbest print journalism idea I've heard of since the cue-cat!

 

[MileHigh]

Riverside uses reporters' mugs on team notebooks. But not gamers.

 

[ringer]

So now readers are going to pay for 2-to-4 stamp-sized photos of people they couldn't care less about on every page???

I agree completely. Who gives a crap what the writer looks like?

 

[steveu]

It's now standard practice on Mlive.com with the Booth papers. I do wonder what happens, though, when the wrong mugshot is drawn up.

But that's online, where all they have to do is file the story according to the writer and the info pops up.
Bigger margin for error in print.

You got that right. I guess I was just trying to say it's beginning to be more common practice with reporters other than columnists, etc.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

"Photos take up space. Lower labor costs on stupid words".

-- Broadbased Idiocy, circa 2010

 

[SixToe]

Just another element to possibly screw up and also take away space, however minimal, from copy.

The fewer teasers, refers, rules, dolled-up tricks, mug shots and other crap, the better.

If you want to put all of that on a Web site, do it. Just keep the paper cleaner and with good information, not visual vomit.

 

[murphyc]

Sorry, we had to cut the bottom four inches off your story to make room for your mug. There wasn't anything important in those final inches, right?

 

[Shaggy]

I think it's a good idea.

Through Twitter, radio shows, etc. etc., there's already a benefit in branding your beat writers as THE source on the team they cover. Associating a face with the brand can't hurt. Like it or not, beat writers are minor public figures and newspapers shouldn't shy away from that.

And taking away space from copy? C'mon. Why don't we just take away paragraphs too, and have the newspaper be one big block of text. Photos? They take away from copy too.

In an attention-deprived society we live in today, you've got to make things more visual.

 

[Shaggy]

I thought it was standard to run the columnist's mug.

The last artist's drawing serving that purpose that I have seen was on a microfilm reel circa 1959.

I think the Los Angeles Times still does sketches. And Sports Illustrated does, too.

 

[SF_Express]

I don't know that I think this is a good idea -- but it's not a space issue.

Unless I'm missing something in the description, cutting a mugshot into every story is probably going to "cost" a couple of lines of type, depending on how each story justifies.

Murphy, I know you were just making a point -- but it ain't 4 inches...

 

[EagleMorph]

I don't know that I think this is a good idea -- but it's not a space issue.

Unless I'm missing something in the description, cutting a mugshot into every story is probably going to "cost" a couple of lines of type, depending on how each story justifies.

Murphy, I know you were just making a point -- but it ain't 4 inches...

These will be one-inch by one-inch thumbnails, maybe slightly larger, that will go near the byline.

 

[bumpy mcgee]

So you're saying we're going to have local art with every story? Sweet.

 

[flexmaster33]

People don't read stories for the bylines...enough said.

 

[reformedhack]

People don't read stories for the bylines...enough said.

Oh, there's plenty more to be said.

Experience proves otherwise, particularly for reporters on highly visible beats ... not just sports, but politics, entertainment, cops & courts, etc., etc., etc. Saying people don't pay attention to bylines is a frequently used crutch, easily pulled out of the briefcase and presented as irrefutable truth, but it's an outdated belief. It wasn't all that true even when I started in the business 25 years ago, and it's just plainly a wrongheaded notion today.

In an age of multimedia choice, people are paying attention to who's covering the things they care about. They care about who's telling them the news, mostly to decide whether they can trust them (for whatever specious and mercurial reasons they choose to make this decision). Building a brand, as was noted earlier, is becoming more and more important. We're trafficking less in news than in trust and likability nowadays.

Should it be that way? Hell, no. But that's reality. While those of us in the business believe reporters should be interchangeable (at least in theory), readers DO pay attention to who's bringing the information to them.

Do I like the OCR's new strategy? I'm dubious. But I certainly understand the thinking.